Gray skies. A sheen of moisture on everything. Somewhere up in the woods, a tree lets go of a dead limb. I lock eyes with the hummingbird hovering a foot from my nose.
Plummer’s Hollow
Rain starts at sunrise and tapers off a half hour later. In its wake: phoebe, pewee, goldfinch, Carolina wren. A cedar waxwing’s whistle.
Heavily overcast and quiet, except for the steady trill of tree crickets and a distant vireo. A catbird rustles in the silky dogwood, gorging on the deep-blue drupes.
Breezy and cool. The white lilac, with at least 75% of its leaves dead from disease, is bizarrely in blossom again, with at least five full-sized clusters, white as flags signalling surrender.
An autumnal sunrise heralded by crickets. I search the bracken patch for any two fronds in the same shade of green, yellow, or brown.
In the wake of a quick hummingbird with her elegant wand, a bumblebee continues to work the jewelweed, clambering up into each orange throat.
Half a moon alone in the sky. A silent catbird flies into the half-dead lilac. Off through the forest, blinding fragments of the sun.
Overcast and breezy. The orange jewelweed below the porch has grown so tall, I can actually see the hummingbird visiting the topmost blossoms now—the green blur of her wings, the dew slicking her bill.
A dawn chorus of tree crickets, field crickets and mole crickets. After a half-clear sunrise, the clouds move in.
An hour past sunrise, the first cicada call of the day stutters to a stop halfway through and resumes a half-hour later. Mosquitoes circle my feet propped up on the balustrade.
Sunrise reddens the western ridge as the flat-tire moon fades, alone in the sky. Jewelweed flowers along the stream nod and sway as the first hummingbird makes her rounds.
Crystal-clear and still at sunrise. Dew drips from the roof. Over by the springhouse, a red squirrel and a Carolina wren are having a free and frank exchange of views.
Clear and cold at dawn. The nearly full moon gutters among the trees. A screech owl trills with a rising intonation, which feels like some kind of omen.
Mid-morning and the sun is just struggling free of clouds and/or smoke. A chicken cackles in the distance. Annual cicadas exchange raspy notes.